


In Relief

by elysiumwaits



Series: Tumblr Prompts/Fics [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arthur Finds Out About Merlin’s Magic (Merlin), BAMF Merlin (Merlin), First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Minor Angst, Mostly Fluff, he knows before the fic starts, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysiumwaits/pseuds/elysiumwaits
Summary: “Because you’re a great sorcerer?” There was no derision in Arthur’s voice this time, just something that sounded an awful lot like panic as Merlin reached forward.“No, sire,” Merlin said, glancing up at Arthur again. He knew, from the way that he could feel the magic in his blood, that his eyes were gold. “I’m the greatest.”





	In Relief

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually written for a kiss prompt on Tumblr, specifically a kiss in relief. Come hang out with me at elysiumwaits.

**** They had known that the structure was unstable. Crumbling, ancient fort in the middle of nowhere that really shouldn’t have still been standing in the first place, of  _ course _ it was unstable - the question was why  _ was _ it still standing? Merlin had felt it the moment they’d gotten close, the thrum of magic in the area, sweet and cloying, calling like a siren’s song, beckoning them closer and closer. 

“This is it,” he had said, unable to tear his eyes away from the way the ivy climbed the stone, digging his fingernails into the bark of the tree he was braced on in an effort to keep himself from stepping forward and just soaking all of that energy up like a sponge.

“I don’t feel anything, but I suppose you would know,” Arthur replied, just as bitter as he’d been in every conversation they’d had for the past few weeks. 

Merlin was getting tired of this distance between them, but he couldn’t deny that it was better than he expected when he’d thought of Arthur finding out about his sorcery in the past. He wasn’t on a pyre, for one, or beheaded. Nothing had changed, really, not in his station or in his day-to-day life, except for the angry way that Arthur spoke to him and seemed to alternate between wanting Merlin out of his sight and wanting Merlin where the prince could see him at all times.

He had hoped that traipsing out to the middle of some deep, dark woods in search of something that apparently made people go missing would bring back some of their camaraderie, but so far it hadn’t happened. At this rate, he wasn’t sure it ever would, and he wasn’t sure how long he could stand it.

That was, he supposed, a problem for later.

“I  _ would  _ know,” Merlin snapped. “Considering I’m apparently the greatest and most powerful sorcerer to ever live, or something like that.”

“So you keep saying.” Arthur brushed past Merlin, walking towards the rubble, and Merlin resisted the temptation to drop a branch or hundred on top of him. 

Except for when he had exposed himself by saving Arthur’s life (for, might he add, the hundredth or so time) that night so many weeks ago, Merlin had avoided using magic in front of him. He had the feeling he wouldn’t be able to avoid it here, however, because the whole area seemed to be saturated in it, even if it felt… off. Strange.

“You don’t feel anything?” Merlin finally asked, breaking the silence that was so common between them now. “Nothing at all, not an intense urge to keep going?”

“Nothing,” Arthur confirmed, and only looked back when Merlin made a sound. He stopped, turned, sighed. “What is it?”

Merlin shifted, looking around. “Walk back over there,” he finally said, and pointed to the tree that he’d been holding onto. 

Once he’d made the short trek Merlin had requested, Arthur turned, obviously annoyed. Merlin made that same thoughtful, slightly perturbed sound again.

“What?” Arthur demanded. “Did I not  _ walk  _ correctly?”

“No, it’s just that.” Merlin paused, biting his lip, an uncomfortable sensation creeping up his spine. “I can’t go back.” He turned again, this time back to the fortress. 

There it was, that need to go deeper, the idea that he had to continue now, he’d already come this far, hadn’t he? The magic in the land around him sang to his own, and he wondered if maybe someone who wasn’t… well, him, if maybe they wouldn’t have been able to realize what exactly was spurring them on.

“What do you mean you can’t go back?” Arthur had come back while Merlin was contemplating, and his voice was startlingly close now that Merlin was used to distance from him. 

“I think whatever’s here is holding me here,” Merlin said, and found himself unwilling to tear his gaze away from the structure. He needed to go in, he knew that much, but he also knew that it perhaps wasn’t actually his own mind providing that particular thought. “Something about the magic… I need to go inside.”

His feet started moving again, towards the fort, but Arthur caught him by the elbow. “I think you should stay out here,” he said, commanding tone laced with something that Merlin thought might have been concern. He wasn’t really sure, couldn’t really concentrate on anything beyond the way the magic of the fort was begging him to come to it.

“I can’t do anything about it from out here.” Merlin shook off Arthur’s hand and set off, and found that, for some reason, he really didn’t care if Arthur followed. “The magic in this place,” Merlin said as they walked. “It’s  _ wrong _ . And if you can leave, and I can’t - I’d bet all of the people who have been lost here have had some kind of magical power.”

“Won’t you just get lost too?” Arthur asked urgently. “Merlin…”

“No.” Merlin glanced at him. “You’re with me. And they… they wouldn’t have recognized it like I have.”

One of the walls was crumbling away, and they stepped through, over the ivy and the stone. Ragged tapestries, moth-eaten and moulded, hung on the walls, and as they walked deeper, skeletons lined the way. The magic was heady around them, thick like a fog even if it couldn’t be seen. Merlin’s head spun with it, and he reached for his own to keep it at bay as best he could.

They stepped through a doorway, and there it was - the epicenter, drifting languidly above a necklace. Amulet, more than likely - dark jewel inlaid into silver on a long chain, a little too tempting to be any good to anyone. There were skeletons all around it, hands outstretched as though they’d tried to reach for it. 

“It used them to survive,” Merlin murmured, half to himself. “Drained them, stole their power for its own. Left nothing but bones.” He moved forward, but was again stopped by Arthur - this time, with a tight grip around his wrist.

“Merlin,” Arthur said, looking at Merlin with an urgent sort of expression that Merlin couldn’t name. “If it did that to  _ them _ , what will it do to  _ you _ ?” 

“I can destroy it.” Merlin swallowed. “I mean, I have to, don’t I? Can’t leave until I do.”

“Or you’ll  _ die _ ,” Arthur snapped.

“I won’t die,” Merlin said, and pulled his arm from Arthur’s grasp once more. He edged as close to the strange pedestal and the amulet as he dared without touching it, reaching forward. 

“Because you’re a great sorcerer?” There was no derision in Arthur’s voice this time, just something that sounded an awful lot like panic as Merlin reached forward.

The magic, so beckoning before, now shied away from him as it realized that it could not absorb him, could not destroy him. This was the point, he realized as a tingle went up his arm, at which the others had died, withered away to nothing.

“No, sire,” Merlin said, glancing up at Arthur again. He knew, from the way that he could feel the magic in his blood, that his eyes were gold. “I’m the  _ greatest _ .”

His fingers closed around the amulet. A great  _ pulse _ of something went through him, and out, echoed around them, through the stone of the fortress and the forest beyond. Then, as he pulled the amulet from the pedestal, he could feel it - the rumble of stone collapsing on itself.

The amulet had been the only thing holding the place together.

“ _ Run! _ ” 

Down the hallway, past the tattered tapestries, through the archways as stone rained upon them, Merlin with one hand up trying to keep as much of a shield up as he could - the amulet  _ had _ drained something, he thought wildly.

Arthur in front of him, always faster, always one step ahead.

Arthur in the sunlight, out and safe. 

The shield above Merlin gave out as he stumbled, and if not for the hand closing around his outstretched wrist at that exact moment, the mighty, desperate grip that yanked him into the sunlight and onto the grass, he would have been buried under a pile of stone and rubble. 

For a moment, they laid in the grass, and listened as what was left of the fortress crumbled in on itself. Slowly, Merlin came back to himself - now that he wasn’t fighting off the amulet’s unsettling magic, it was easy to realize that he hadn’t been thinking very clearly at all - and unclenched his hand from where it was curled around the jewel. He also came to the sudden realization that he was lying half on top of Arthur, something the prince probably wouldn’t take too kindly to. 

Arthur’s other hand came up, though, fisting in Merlin’s clothes and stopping him from rolling off and away, surging up and practically forcing Merlin into sitting in his lap. “ _ You _ ,” the prince breathed out, sounding very much like he would like to strangle Merlin and was having to stop himself from doing so.

“Me?” Merlin said - or rather, attempted to say, considering that he really only managed to get his mouth open before Arthur’s lips were crashing into his own. The hand around Merlin’s wrist came up to curl around the back of his neck, seemingly just in case Merlin had any ideas about pulling away.

It was desperate, every bit as overwhelming and heady as the magic inside the amulet had been. When Arthur finally parted them to breathe, grip on Merlin loosening but not releasing, it was to press his forehead to Merlin’s shoulder.

“You will be the death of me,” he said to Merlin’s neck. “It was bad enough trying to keep you safe when I thought you were useless at protecting yourself. Now you’re the  _ greatest bloody sorcerer to have ever lived _ , and all that means to me is that you’re going to be throwing yourself at every single thing you think can’t hurt you.”

“Sire,” Merlin breathed, dropping the amulet in the grass in favor of bringing one hand up to tangle through Arthur’s blond hair.

“You’re not  _ invincible _ ,” Arthur continued into Merlin’s neck, and then pressed a kiss to it too. “You may be the greatest sorcerer to have  _ every bloody lived _ , but you’re still an  _ idiot _ . I’ve spent weeks trying to come up with a way to keep you safe from my own  _ father _ , I didn’t even consider buildings and magic amulets and whatever else the world comes up with.”

“Arthur,” Merlin said, insistently.

Arthur lifted his head, looking at Merlin with some strange mix of exhaustion, trepidation, and fondness. “ _ What _ , Merlin?”

Merlin shook his head - there was no words he could come up with at the moment, so he leaned in as Arthur moved to meet him, and figured a kiss would work just as well.


End file.
